Cyprus Film Days International Festival, the island’s premier platform for world and local cinema and new voices, enters 2026 under the artistic direction of Petros Charalambous and Argyro Nicolaou. According to the official announcement, the two Artistic Directors pledge to maintain the festival at the high standards audiences have come to expect, while expanding it with new challenges and collaborations.
They promise premieres of films by acclaimed and emerging creators from Cyprus and around the world - works that confront social, political and artistic questions of our times with sensitivity, boldness and a subversive spirit. The festival will also cultivate creative encounters in an atmosphere of discovery, social awareness and open discussion.
On this occasion, the festival expressed its gratitude to director Marios Lizides, who devoted his services, knowledge and passion to Cyprus Film Days over the past three years.
Petros from bridge to stage
Petros Charalambous’ early exposure to photography, theatre and the arts, coupled with his need for emotional and visual expression, led him to Hollywood, where he studied Film and Television Directing at California State University. This formative period laid the foundation for a career spanning more than two decades.
Since 2000, Charalambous has been directing commercials, documentaries, theatre productions and films. His first feature, Boy on the Bridge, premiered at the Rome Film Festival before travelling to more than 50 international festivals, winning 13 awards. His second feature, Patchwork, had its world premiere in the East of the West competition section of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
His artistic vision has also extended to the stage. He directed the small opera Epitafios, the play Historias Paralelas, and for the 24 Hour Plays initiative, Hearts at 950 Degrees Celsius and Your Molotov Kisses. In September 2022, as part of the Kypria International Festival, he staged My Room is Not a Stage.
Charalambous has played a key role in cultivating film culture among younger generations. As Artistic Director of the Children’s Section of Cyprus Film Days, he organized the European Film Academy’s Young Audience Award (2019–2021) in Cyprus. He is a member of the Hellenic Film Academy and the Directors Guild of Cyprus, and founder of the FilmEtc. Creative Space in Nicosia.
He is currently developing his new feature film, 4 Hours.
The intellectual lens of Argyro
Argyro Nicolaou is a Cypriot filmmaker, writer and researcher based in New York. Her short films have been screened at major festivals across Europe and the United States, including Tallinn Black Nights, Drama International Short Film Festival, Athens International Film Festival and DC Shorts, as well as in art spaces such as MoMA’s Gallatin Galleries in New York, space52 in Athens and the A. G. Leventis Gallery in Nicosia.
Her writing has appeared in MoMA post, the American Historical Review, the Boston Art Review and numerous collected volumes. She is completing her first book, Knowing Displacement, which examines how representations of Mediterranean migration in literature, film and visual art dismantle the myth of Fortress Europe.
Nicolaou earned her PhD in Comparative Literature and Critical Media Practice from Harvard University in 2018, where she received the Bowdoin Prize, the university’s most prestigious writing award. She has worked as a curatorial researcher at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and has taught at Princeton, Columbia and Bard College.
Her debut feature film, Excavators, won the Connecting Cottbus Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival’s Eastern Promises Industry section in 2023, while her first feature documentary, Unsettled (My Sea), is currently in production, following its selection at the UnionDocs Early Production Lab in 2024. Nicolaou is a member of the European Film Academy, the Directors Guild of Cyprus and the Visual Artists and Art Theorists Association.
For the cinephile
The 24th edition of Cyprus film Days IFF will take place from 17 to 25 April 2026, in both Nicosia and Limassol.
With Charalambous’ grounding in cinematic craft and theatre and Nicolaou’s multidisciplinary approach bridging cinema, literature and research, Cyprus Film Days 2026 promises to be a festival of encounters, between established and emerging filmmakers, local and international audiences, and art forms that challenge and expand the way we see the world.
The Deputy Ministry of Culture of Cyprus and the Rialto Theatre have announced the call for submissions of feature films for the two Competition Sections of the festival which seeks to broaden its horizons beyond the island’s geographical boundaries, attracting international film industry professionals and audiences, and establishing Cyprus as a meeting hub for the three neighbouring continents.
Eligible submissions include feature films produced in 2024, 2025 or 2026. You may submit your film until 15 December 2025.